Israel at 60: Will Israel Strike Iran Before Bush Leaves Office
May 9, 2008
On Israel’s 60th birthday, the Jewish state may be readying for its biggest fight yet. What that could mean for the next American president.
Generally speaking, six decades after the founding of your nation, you shouldn’t still be fighting for your right to exist. You should have achieved at least that much. And after the wars of 1948, ‘67 and ‘73, and other conflicts—including two intifadas—many Israelis would like to think they’ve honorably battled their way to the right to existence. But they haven’t made it yet. Today, on its 60th birthday, Israel remains as much in existential peril as it was in those early months after the U.N. General Assembly approved the partition of Palestine and Arab armies attacked the infant state.
Arguably, it is at even greater risk now than it was then. Very soon now Israel could be engaged in the biggest battle for existence it has ever faced in its not-so-short-any-longer history. And the next U.S. president—whether it is Barack Obama or John McCain—may have a bigger crisis on his hands than anything since 9/11. While Israeli officials insist they are sticking to diplomacy, a number of circumstances are aligning to make an Israeli strike on Iran more likely before the end of 2008:
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United States Is Drawing Up Plans To Strike on Iranian Insurgency Camp
May 4, 2008
The US military is drawing up plans for a “surgical strike” against an insurgent training camp inside Iran if Republican Guards continue with attempts to destabilise Iraq, western intelligence sources said last week. One source said the Americans were growing increasingly angry at the involvement of the Guards’ special-operations Quds force inside Iraq, training Shi’ite militias and smuggling weapons into the country.
U.S. Sends 2nd Aircraft Carrier To Persian Gulf As A Reminder To Iran
April 30, 2008
U.S. Sends 2nd Aircraft Carrier To Persian Gulf As A Reminder To Iran
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Mexican leaders Tuesday, Gates said heightening US critics of Iran and its support for terrorist groups is not a signal that the administration is laying the ground work for a strike against Tehran.
Still, he said Iran continues to back the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“I do not have a sense at this point of a significant increase in Iranian support for the Taliban and others opposing the government in Afghanistan,” Gates said. “There is, a best I can tell, a continuing flow, but I would till characterise it as relatively modest.”
The Unthinkable Consequences of an Iran-Israel Nuclear Exchange
April 22, 2008
Anthony Cordesman, a strategist at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, has estimated the consequences if Tehran gets the bomb and a nuclear exchange with Israel ensues. He expects, writes Martin Walker of United Press International, some 16 million to 28 million Iranians dead within 21 days, and between 200,000 and 800,000 Israelis dead within the same time frame. The total of deaths beyond 21 days could rise very much higher, depending on civil defense and public health facilities, where Israel has a major advantage.
It is theoretically possible that the Israeli state, economy and organized society might just survive such an almost-mortal blow. Iran would not survive as an organized society. “Iranian recovery is not possible in the normal sense of the term,” Cordesman notes. The difference in the death tolls is largely because Israel is believed to have more nuclear weapons of very much higher yield (some of 1 megaton), and Israel is deploying the Arrow advanced anti-missile system in addition to its Patriot batteries. Fewer Iranian weapons would get through.
IMF Warns Rising Food Prices Raising Risk of War
April 13, 2008
Rising food prices could have terrible consequences for the world, including the risk of war, the IMF has said, calling for action to keep inflation in check.
“Food prices, if they go on like they are doing today … the consequences will be terrible,” International Monetary Fund managing director Dominque Strauss-Kahn said.
“Hundreds of thousands of people will be starving … (leading) to disruption of the economic environment,” Strauss-Kahn told a news conference at the close of the IMF spring meeting here.
Development gains made in the past five or 10 years could be “totally destroyed,” he said, warning that social unrest could even lead to war.
“As we know, learning from the past, those kind of questions sometimes end in war,” he said. If the world wanted to avoid “these terrible consequences,” then rising prices had to be tackled.
Skyrocketing prices on rice, wheat, corn and other staple foods like milk particularly hurt developing nations, where the bulk of income is spent on the bare necessities for survival.
Higher energy prices, too, are driving up the cost of food, as well as stoking broader inflation.
In recent months, rising food costs have lead to social unrest in several countries such as Haiti and Egypt. Thirty-seven countries currently face food crises, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Escalating inflation is complicating the already complex challenges of a global financial crisis battering the world economy, Strauss-Kahn said.
The 185-nation IMF called for a strong front to put the reeling world economy back on track.
Report: Middle East Nuclear Arms Race Possible
April 3, 2008
Saudi Arabia most likely would develop nuclear weapons if Iran acquires them, according to a report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
High-level American diplomats in Riyadh with excellent access to Saudi decision-makers said an Iranian nuclear weapon frightens the Saudis “to their core” and would compel the Saudis to seek nuclear weapons, the report said. The American diplomats were not identified.
Turkey also would come under pressure to follow suit if Iran builds nuclear weapons in the next decade, said the report prepared by a committee staff member after interviewing hundreds of individuals in Washington and the Middle East last July through December.
While Turkey and Iran do not see themselves as adversaries, Turkey believes a power balance between them is the primary reason for a peaceful relationship, the report said.
Egypt most likely would choose not to respond by pursuing its own nuclear weapons program, said the report prepared in late February and obtained Wednesday. The impact on relations with Israel and the United States were cited as the primary reasons.
A U.S. intelligence estimate late last year said Iran worked on nuclear weapons programs until 2003 before abandoning them. However, the intelligence analysts also reported Iran was continuing to enrich uranium, a key weapons component, and possessed the capacity to produce nuclear weapons if it decided to do so.
Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., the senior Republican on the committee, directed staff member Bradley Bowman to conduct the study.
Among its conclusions, the report said demands for nuclear energy and for matching Iran’s nuclear progress virtually guarantees that three or four Middle Eastern countries will generate nuclear power by 2025.
And this, in turn, will reduce the obstacles to acquiring nuclear weapons, the report said.
The spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East could reduce regional security and endanger U.S. interests, the report said.
In the next two or three years, the United States must take steps to restore Arab and Turkish confidence in U.S. security guarantees, the report concluded.
Otherwise, it said, “the future Middle East landscape may include a number of nuclear-armed or nuclear weapons-capable states vying for influence in a notoriously unstable region.”
North Korea Warns South Korea of Pre-emptive Strike
March 31, 2008
North Korea threatened South Korea with destruction Sunday after Seoul’s top military officer said he would consider attacking the communist nation if it tried to carry out a nuclear attack.
The statement from North Korea’s official news agency marked the third straight day of bellicose rhetoric from the North, which is angry over the harsher line the South’s new president has taken against the country since assuming office last month.
“Our military will not sit idle until warmongers launch a pre-emptive strike,” said an unidentified KCNA military commentator. “Everything will be in ashes, not just a sea of fire, if our advanced pre-emptive strike once begins.”
On Friday, North Korea test-fired a barrage of missiles into the sea and warned it would “mercilessly wipe out” any South Korean warships that violate its waters near their disputed sea border.
Such rhetoric by North Korea at times of increased tensions is not rare, and it comes just two days before a scheduled visit to South Korea by the chief U.S. negotiator in North Korean nuclear disarmament talks.
Sunday’s statement also warned that the North would suspend all scheduled inter-Korean dialogue unless Seoul retracts and apologizes for the remark by its new top military leader.
6 Signs U.S. May Be Readying For War With Iran
March 17, 2008
Is the United States moving toward military action with Iran?
The resignation of the top U.S. military commander for the Middle East is setting off alarms that the Bush administration is intent on using military force to stop Iran’s moves toward gaining nuclear weapons.
In announcing his sudden resignation today following a report on his views in Esquire, Adm. William Fallon didn’t directly deny that he differs with President Bush over at least some aspects of the president’s policy on Iran. For his part, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said it is “ridiculous” to think that the departure of Fallon — whose Central Command has been working on contingency plans for strikes on Iran as well as overseeing Iraq — signals that the United States is planning to go to war with Iran.
Fallon’s resignation, ending a 41-year Navy career, has reignited the buzz of speculation over what the Bush administration intends to do given that its troubled, sluggish diplomatic effort has failed to slow Iran’s nuclear advances. Those activities include the advancing process of uranium enrichment, a key step to producing the material necessary to fuel a bomb, though the Iranians assert the work is to produce nuclear fuel for civilian power reactors, not weapons.
Here are six developments that may have Iran as a common thread. And, if it comes to war, they may be seen as clues as to what was planned. None of them is conclusive, and each has a credible non-Iran related explanation:
1. Fallon’s resignation: With the Army fully engaged in Iraq, much of the contingency planning for possible military action has fallen to the Navy, which has looked at the use of carrier-based warplanes and sea-launched missiles as the weapons to destroy Iran’s air defenses and nuclear infrastructure. Centcom commands the U.S. naval forces in and near the Persian Gulf.
In the aftermath of the problems with the Iraq war, there has been much discussion within the military that senior military officers should have resigned at the time when they disagreed with the White House.
Kuwaiti Paper: Mega-Attack on Israel in March
March 3, 2008
The Kuwaiti daily Al-Watan quoted “top Western sources” Monday saying that, “according to reliable intelligence information, Hizbullah has begun planning a large-scale attack on Israel in retaliation for its [alleged] assassination of senior Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyah.”
According to the report, translated by MEMRI, the attack is being planned in coordination with Syria and Iran, and is to take place before the Arab summit next month.
It was also reported that there would be a simultaneous terrorist escalation by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other PA groups in Gaza.
US Warship Sails Towards Lebanon
March 3, 2008
The United States has ordered a warship to take up position off the coast of Lebanon in a show of support for the country’s embattled government.
The deployment of the USS Cole is being seen as a warning to Syria which - along with Iran - backs the opposition.
The Western-backed government and the opposition have repeatedly failed to agree a deal to end political impasse.
A US official quoted by news agencies said the move was “a show of support for regional stability”.
“We are very concerned about the situation in Lebanon. It has dragged on very long,” the unnamed senior US official told Reuters news agency.
A US defence official quoted by Reuters said the USS Cole, a guided-missile destroyer, had left Malta on Tuesday and was heading toward Lebanon.
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